DOCSLIB.ORG

Wittgenstein and Derrida on the Possibility of Meaning: Hierarchy Or Non-Hierarchy, Simple Or Non-Simple Origin, Deferral Or Non-Deferral

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Wittgenstein and Derrida on the Possibility of Meaning: Hierarchy Or Non-Hierarchy, Simple Or Non-Simple Origin, Deferral Or Non-Deferral Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 2 August 2019 doi:10.20944/preprints201908.0016.v1 Wittgenstein and Derrida on the Possibility of Meaning: Hierarchy or Non-Hierarchy, Simple or Non-simple Origin, Deferral or Non-Deferral Neil B MacDonald University of Roehampton London SW15 5PH, UK [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6456-1980 Abstract: Meaning understood in terms of teachability and learnability is crucial to Wittgenstein’s later work. As regards the resolution of philosophical problems – and epistemological problems in particular - this approach seems to posit a hierarchy of meaning that excludes endless deferral. This is the basis of Wittgenstein’s attack on philosophical scepticism. Derrida’s approach to language seems to require both non-hierarchy and endless deferral. Consequently fundamental to his concept of origin is identity and difference simultaneously, irreducibly, non-simply. One question is whether it is possible for there to be a compromise between the two philosophers: a hierarchy of meaning that does not in principle exclude endless deferral. Keywords: Wittgenstein; Derrida; Meaning; Hierarchy; Deferral; Learnability; Teachability; Différance; Origin; Identity; Difference INTRODUCTION It cannot be gainsaid that both Wittgenstein and Derrida share a common preoccupation with language. Wittgenstein, especially the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, belongs to a specifically Austrian tradition of 'language-consciousness' traceable back - through one of his own contemporaries Karl Kraus - to the first half of the nineteenth century. This essentially literary tradition was combined in the Tractatus with the language of propositional and predicate logic, a language whose source could be traced back to another Austrian, Gottlieb Frege. (Frege's own intellectual context may be said to be the no less indigenous Austrian scientific tradition of the second half of the same century: the work of Brentano and his successor Ernst Mach at the University of Vienna. Brentano's guiding © 2019 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license. Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 2 August 2019 doi:10.20944/preprints201908.0016.v1 philosophical principle was Vera philosophiae methodus nulla alia nisi scientia naturalis est: the true method of philosophy is none other than that of natural science). If anything, the later Wittgenstein is even more focussed on language: instead of objective scientific language as the only meaningful language, it was now merely one of many. Wittgenstein now affirmed a plurality of 'language- games'. What of Derrida in this respect? Language too is uppermost in his philosophy. His influences have been Nietzsche, Heidegger, and various forms of structuralist thought, especially that of the linguist Ferdinand Saussure. Derrida maintains that both phonetic and conceptual systems are systems of differences. What defines an 'a' as an a in a phonetic system is its difference from other phonemes within the system, rather than intrinsic characters of the sound. Derrida extends this insight to conceptual schemes. A concept is defined by its differences, hence a conceptual system is a system of differences. The concept a is defined in terms of everything else in the system, that which is not a, (a is precisely not-not a). (Though Derrida shares a common legacy with 'objective' structuralists such as Roland Barthes who also stands in the tradition of Saussure, Derrida's attitude to language is - in virtue of the method of deconstruction - commonly defined as post-structuralist. Wittgenstein as will be seen is a form of ‘structuralism’ in the broadest sense of the term.) However, the shared concern Derrida has with Wittgenstein as regards language has seemed to go deeper than a mere common focus on language. It is not only that Wittgenstein affirmed a plurality of 'language-games', it is that he took this to mean that no one 'game' assumed priority over another. Here, it could be said, is a basic affinity with Derrida: Wittgenstein's conception of the relations between language games is decidedly non-hierarchical; Derrida's conception of deconstruction presupposes non-hierarchy in its very performance. It seems to me that it is clear that Wittgenstein affirmed a plurality of language-games; what seems much more doubtful is the claim that he affirmed a non-hierarchical relationship between one language-game and another. Indeed, I would argue that Wittgenstein would have said that, to say that the relation between one language-game and another was either hierarchical or non- hierarchical, did not itself make sense. It was simply not the kind of thing one said of language-games: they could neither be said to justify or not justify each other. This becomes especially evident when we consider the examples of language-games that Wittgenstein actually gave. According to the list outlined in paragraph 23 of the Philosophical Investigations it seems clear that he meant by the term ‘language-game’, simple everyday activities such as: giving orders, and Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 2 August 2019 doi:10.20944/preprints201908.0016.v1 obeying them, reporting an event, forming and testing a hypothesis, etc.1 He did not mean that science was one language-game, religion another, politics another, and so on, all existing in a non-hierarchical relationship.2 I am not saying that this position is not valid; I am simply saying that it is unlikely that Wittgenstein held it. That the above most accurately reflects Wittgenstein’s conception of language-games - language-games can neither be said to be hierarchical or non- hierarchical as regards each other - does not rule out, and indeed allows for, a very interesting possibility. The way is open to argue that in the arguments of the later Wittgenstein there is, precisely, the pervasive presence of hierarchy. This is what I intend to do in what follows. I will suggest that there is a fundamental dissimilarity between Wittgenstein and Derrida on the question of hierarchy. Specifically, I wish to demonstrate that the later Wittgenstein's and Derrida's respective accounts of language - their respective philosophies of language if you will - cannot be rendered compatible. I will argue that one cannot without inconsistency affirm both Wittgenstein's critique of Cartesian scepticism and Derrida's deconstructive approach to language. The fundamental reason is that Derrida rejects hierarchy, Wittgenstein not. The reason for this is that the latter’s dialectic employs a teachability-learnability criterion that is at the heart of his approach both to scepticism and to meaning per se. The paper essentially comprises of three sections. I first examine Wittgenstein's critique of Cartesian scepticism. Then I juxtapose Derrida’s concept of différance and deconstruction. Following this I discuss the implications of Wittgenstein's critique of Descartes for his relation to Derrida. In the course of these sections I hope to show that: Wittgenstein's critique of Cartesian scepticism presupposes hierarchy; Derrida's deconstructive critique of language affirms non-hierarchy. I conclude from this that Wittgenstein and Derrida cannot be reconciled on the question of hierarchy. On the wider issue of whether the later Wittgenstein necessarily rejected the Derridian notion of endless deferral on the grounds that it precluded teachability and learnability of meaning per se I propose an ‘agnostic’ answer. I conclude that, while his position on matters epistemological in On Certainty appears to do so, the evidence in, for example, Zettel, on the question of language-learning per se is not necessarily clear-cut. This remains so even if the resources constituting teachability and learnability criteria necessarily originate in what Wittgenstein calls ‘forms of life.’ In a concluding section I explore the implications of my 1 Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations, edited by G E M Anscombe, (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1953). 2 For a summary of the literature on this point, see Fergus Kerr, Theology After Wittgenstein (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1999), 64-66. Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 2 August 2019 doi:10.20944/preprints201908.0016.v1 framework for understanding the relation between Wittgenstein, Derrida and Descartes in the context of the history of ideas. WITTGENSTEIN'S CRITIQUE OF CARTESIAN SCEPTICISM Let me start with Descartes. Descartes' 'project of pure enquiry' was motivated by a desire to put the science of his day on a firm foundation.3 As if in anticipation of the later Enlightenment philosophers who drew extensively from the legacy of the Greek and Roman ideals of classical antiquity,4 Descartes' Meditations was influenced by the arguments of the ancient Sceptics and Sextus Empiricus in particular.5 Descartes sought to establish - as against the Sceptics - truths about which there could not be the slightest doubt.6 To this end, he began by rejecting as absolutely false everything which he should have the slightest cause to doubt. He 'doubts everything' until he reaches a proposition about which he cannot have the slightest doubt: a truth that is indubitable or absolutely certain. For Descartes, to say that one should only accept that about which one has not the slightest cause to doubt entails that one might be not be certain about anything: one might not know anything at all. It is precisely on this point that Wittgenstein takes issue in the posthumously published On Certainty.7 In order to conceive of the possibility of the meaningfulness of doubt one has to have a criterion of non-doubt - certainty - against which to measure what it is one conceives as doubt. "If you tried to doubt everything you would not get so far as doubting anything. The game of doubting 3 Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1968), 95. See also J. L. Watling, "Descartes", in D. J. O'Connor (ed.), A Critical History of Western Philosophy (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), 171. 4 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment vol i (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1969), 9-10; 31- 203.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Understanding Poststructuralism Understanding Movements in Modern Thought Series Editor: Jack Reynolds
    understanding poststructuralism Understanding Movements in Modern Thought Series Editor: Jack Reynolds Th is series provides short, accessible and lively introductions to the major schools, movements and traditions in philosophy and the history of ideas since the beginning of the Enlightenment. All books in the series are written for undergraduates meeting the subject for the fi rst time. Published Understanding Existentialism Understanding Virtue Ethics Jack Reynolds Stan van Hooft Understanding Poststructuralism James Williams Forthcoming titles include Understanding Empiricism Understanding Hermeneutics Robert Meyers Lawrence Schmidt Understanding Ethics Understanding Naturalism Tim Chappell Jack Ritchie Understanding Feminism Understanding Phenomenology Peta Bowden and Jane Mummery David Cerbone Understanding German Idealism Understanding Rationalism Will Dudley Charlie Heunemann Understanding Hegelianism Understanding Utilitarianism Robert Sinnerbrink Tim Mulgan understanding poststructuralism James Williams For Richard and Olive It is always about who you learn from. © James Williams, 2005 Th is book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. First published in 2005 by Acumen Acumen Publishing Limited 15a Lewins Yard East Street Chesham Bucks HP5 1HQ www.acumenpublishing.co.uk ISBN 1-84465-032-4 (hardcover) ISBN 1-84465-033-2 (paperback) Work on Chapter 3 was supported by British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
    [Show full text]
  • The Science of Writing
    The Science of Writing Introduction In 1967 the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, published in book form a collection of texts he had been composing, under the title De la Grammatologie, Of Grammatology.1 The book was translated into English in 1974 by Gayatri Spivak and, with its one-hundred-page translator’s introduction, constituted the first major introduction to Derrida for English-speaking audiences. In 1985 an American professor of English Literature, Gregory Ulmer, published his engagement with Derrida under the title, Applied Grammatology: Post(e) Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to Joseph Beuys.2 Ulmer’s investigation is one of the very few instances where Derrida’s mention of ‘grammatology’ is taken up at length. In July 2008, at the Derrida Today conference held at the University of Sydney, in Australia, the French Derrida scholar, Catherine Malabou, presented a key note address that probed the fate of Derrida’s notion of ‘grammatology’ and how its question might be re-engaged or re-invented today.3 By ‘grammatology,’ Derrida inferred a ‘science of writing,’ though an approach to the question of writing that radically engages with the question of science, of truth and of knowing. And if Ulmer activates the question posed by grammatology, it is in order to question a scene of teaching the radically questions writing as such. This paper aims at asking if the work of Derrida and Ulmer has continued relevance for a radicalising of the scene of teaching precisely by a critical engagement with what we commonly name as writing and what we commonly understand as its agency.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Figures of Ubicomp: Conceptualizing And
    FIGURES OF UBICOMP: CONCEPTUALIZING AND COMPOSING ACTIONABLE MEDIA By JOHN TINNELL A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2013 1 © 2013 John Tinnell 2 To Hutton 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like thank all of the amazing people in the English Department at the University of Florida, especially Greg Ulmer and Sid Dobrin. Greg’s work models everything I hope to achieve in my own. While I try to not follow his footsteps too obviously, I will always be seeking to further the insights and projects that his books so originally present. For me, Greg is among the masters that his motto gestures toward. Sid, perhaps more than anyone else, helped me come of age as a professional. Because of his constant encouragement and pinpoint advice, I felt as though I had made the transition from graduate student to Assistant Professor before I even started my dissertation. It would have been inconceivable for me to complete this project in under a year without that level of confidence and support. The other two members of my committee, Laurie Gries and Jack Stenner, provided me with vital feedback. Laurie’s capacity to respond to her students’ writing is unparalleled; she saw incongruencies in my writing to which I would otherwise still be blind. Jack voiced criticisms that I did not want to hear, which are the most important to hear. I thank my parents, emphatically, for their support and for doing what they are passionate about and always encouraging me to do the same.
    [Show full text]
  • By Roland Barthes and "La Carte Postale" by Jacques Derrida
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1995 Re: (Writing) Desire in "Fragments d'Un Discours Amoureux" by Roland Barthes and "La Carte Postale" by Jacques Derrida. Laura Elizabeth Volpe Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Volpe, Laura Elizabeth, "Re: (Writing) Desire in "Fragments d'Un Discours Amoureux" by Roland Barthes and "La Carte Postale" by Jacques Derrida." (1995). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6141. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6141 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master, UMX films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
    [Show full text]
  • Jacques Derrida's Deconstructive Reading of Rousseau's Essay On
    Philosophy Study, October 2015, Vol. 5, No. 10, 499-512 doi: 10.17265/2159-5313/2015.10.002 D DAVID PUBLISHING Misreading Rousseau? Jacques Derrida’s Deconstructive Reading of Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Languages Gerasimos Kakoliris National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Jacques Derrida’s engagement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second part of Of Grammatology constitutes the most systematic, extensive example of deconstructive reading. Nevertheless, the problem of whether Derrida reproduces Rousseau’s basic claims adequately has remained a peripheral concern. This has meant that this may constitute a misreading and the consequences that this would have for the deconstructive operation itself have not adequately examined. Hence, this enquiry into Derrida’s reading of Rousseau centers upon the extent to which Derrida distorts Rousseau’s text in order to be able to confirm deconstruction’s radical theoretical positions. Keywords: Derrida, Rousseau, Deconstructive Reading, Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Languages, Derrida’s Of Grammatology 1. Deconstructing the Essay: Rousseau and Language According to Jacques Derrida, the history of metaphysics has always repressed the written sign and conceived language according to the metaphors of self-presence and the voice (what he calls as “metaphysics of presence”). In order to reveal and contest this repression, Derrida dedicated himself, during the 1960’s, to a series of immanent readings of philosophers as Rousseau, Plato, Hegel, Husserl, Levi-Strauss, and others. These readings sought to show that every attempt to subordinate writing to the immediate expressiveness and full-presence of speech always presupposed a prior system of writing which was in conflict with that subordination.
    [Show full text]
  • Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor
    Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor of Music, University of Toronto, 2012 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Department of French, the School of Music, and Cultural, Social, and Political Thought Mitch Renaud, 2015 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor of Music, University of Toronto, 2012 Supervisory Committee Emile Fromet de Rosnay, Department of French and CSPT Supervisor Christopher Butterfield, School of Music Co-Supervisor Stephen Ross, Department of English and CSPT Outside Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Emile Fromet de Rosnay (Department of French and CSPT) Supervisor Christopher Butterfield (School of Music) Co-Supervisor Stephen Ross (Department of English and CSPT) Outside Member Noise is noisy. Its multiple definitions cover one another in such a way as to generate what they seek to describe. My thesis tracks the ways in which noise can be understood historically and theoretically. I begin with the Skandalkonzert that took place in Vienna in 1913. I then extend this historical example into a theoretical reading of the noise of Derrida’s Of Grammatology, arguing that sound and noise are the unheard of his text, and that Derrida’s thought allows us to hear sound studies differently. Writing on sound must listen to the noise of the motion of différance, acknowledge the failings, fading, and flailings of sonic discourse, and so keep in play the aporias that constitute the field of sound itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Of Grammatology Free
    FREE OF GRAMMATOLOGY PDF Jacques Derrida,Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,Judith Butler | 560 pages | 19 Feb 2016 | JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9781421419954 | English | Baltimore, MD, United States Grammatology - Wikipedia Goodreads helps you keep track Of Grammatology books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh Of Grammatology try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida. Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Translator. Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the s, Of Grammatology changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in Of Grammatology la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been Of Grammatology improper. Thirty years later, the immense influence of Of Grammatology work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Derrida and Oralcy: Grammatology Revisited Christopher Norris It's Still Difficult to Get Used to the Idea That Derrida's
    Derrida and Oralcy: Grammatology revisited Christopher Norris It’s still difficult to get used to the idea that Derrida’s no longer alive, no longer ‘there’ as a kind of tutelary (sometimes cautionary) presence. This is only the second time I’ve given a talk about him since he died. It’s difficult for all sorts of reasons, partly because he was so much a dominant influence on the intellectual scene, partly because he was so active, productive and intellectually creative right up until the last few months of his life. But also because he wrote so much over the years about questions of presence, the writer’s supposed presence in his or her work, and about questions of absence, including the kind of absence that overtakes a body of written work when the author dies and is no longer present to answer directly for his or her words. This raises the whole question of intentions, of authorial meaning (vouloir- dire), of how far we can or should respect those intentions, and so forth. And of course it also raises crucial issues about the scope and limits of interpretation, issues that we are very much concerned with here. In some of his earliest work, for instance in his 1971 essay on J.L. Austin and speech- act philosophy, Derrida was already saying that one of the peculiar traits of written language was the fact that in some sense it survives, it lives on, it continues to communicate or signify beyond the writer’s lifetime. In a sense this is obvious enough, yet Derrida thought of it as something really quite mysterious and hard to explain, this way that writing manages to convey at least the simulacrum of presence regardless of the author’s absence, whether through death or just not being there to respond to any queries.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Structuralism Dialogue Between Postmodernism and the Catholic Tradi- and the So-Called Russian Formalists
    Post-Structuralism dialogue between postmodernism and the Catholic tradi- and the so-called Russian formalists. Among the most tion is ongoing and has already borne copious fruit. important representatives of post-structuralist philosophy are Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), Gilles Deleuze (1925– SEE ALSO DECONSTRUCTIONISM;DIFFERENCE;LOGOCENTRISM;RE- 1995), Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998), Jacques ALISM;RELATIVISM. Lacan (1901–1981), Michel Foucault (1926–1984), and Slavoj Žižek and his school. Though many of the BIBLIOGRAPHY representatives have French backgrounds, their theories De Schrijver, Georges. “Postmodernity and the Withdrawal of have had influence all over the world, especially in the the Divine: A Challenge for Theology.” In Sacramental Pres- areas of philosophy of language, ETHICS, NEOPRAGMA- ence in a Postmodern Context, edited by Lieven Boeve and TISM, literary theory, and gender studies. In the United Lambert Leijssen, 39–64. Louvain, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2001. States, the works of Richard Rorty (1931–2007) and Judith Butler are often associated with post-structuralism. John Paul II. Fides et ratio. [Encyclical Letter on the Relation- ship between Faith and Reason]. September 14, 1998. http:// What distinguishes structuralism from post-structuralism www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/docu is not always easy to identify, but as a general rule post- ments/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html. structuralists see their theories as based on structuralism’s Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on philosophy of language (Saussure) and anthropology Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Mas- (Lévi-Strauss), but they apply those insights to a wider sumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
    [Show full text]
  • Derrida, Jaques [1997 (1967)]: of Grammatology
    JAQUES DERRIDA OF GRAMMATOLOGY Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Derrida, Jacques [1997 (1967)]: Of Grammatology Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press Back-Cover ....................................................................................................... 2 Boken starter ........................................................................................................ 3 Contents ..................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. 7 Translator’s Preface .............................................................................................................. 8 I ............................................................................................................... 12 II ........................................................................................................................ 18 III ................................................................................................................................. 46 IV ......................................................................................................... 57 V ............................................................................................................................... 66 VI ......................................................................................................... 74 Preface ............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • In His Book of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida Writes
    Volume 10: 2017-18 ISSN: 2041-6776 In his book Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida writes: ‘Even if there is never a pure signified, there are different relationships as to that which, from the signifier, is presented as the irreducible stratum of the signified’. Discuss the relationship between figurative language and signification in the poems ‘Daddy’ by Sylvia Plath and ‘The Hollow Men’ by T.S. Eliot Daniel Lyons When discussing the social function of poetry, T.S. Eliot states that good poetry should involve the ‘communication of some new experience’, ‘some fresh understanding of the familiar’ to enlarge and refine our ‘consciousness’ and ‘sensibility.’1 Poets, therefore, adopt techniques of figurative language and manipulate poetic form in order to convey meaning; to express an idea by way of a separate idea which subsequently enriches comprehension. By extension, this attempt to create meaning can be understood through the Poststructuralist framework of Jacques Derrida. While poets can use metaphor as a form of expression, according to Derrida there can never be a ‘transcendental’ or ‘absolute’ signified meaning; there is always a space between the metaphor itself and its cognition, the signifier and signified.2 Written nearly forty years apart and in living memory of two World Wars, Eliot’s poem ‘The Hollow Men’ and Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’ utilise this metaphorical distance within the figurative language of their poems to varying effect. While Eliot uses abstract nouns and open metaphorical mappings to imitate the passivity and non-action of “the hollow men” themselves, Plath utilises more specific semantic fields and hyperbolic metaphors in order to replicate the voice of an immature speaker.
    [Show full text]
  • Structuralism and Post-Structuralism PHIL 607 Spring 2016 T-Th 10
    Structuralism and Post-structuralism PHIL 607 Spring 2016 T-Th 10 – 11:20am, SC 250C Instructor: Dr. Beata Stawarska Office: SC 247 Office hours: T 4-5:50pm and by appointment Email: [email protected] This seminar examines structuralism and post-structuralism within the context of contemporary philosophy and literary theory. We will begin by tracing the emergence of scientific structuralism within the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, and consider its legacy in the works of Levi- Strauss and Lacan. We will then turn to the post-structuralist critique of scientific structuralism as developed especially in Derrida’s classic work Of Grammatology (in a 40th Anniversary edition reissued and revised in 2016), as well as essays such as ‘Différance’, and the interviews from Positions, with an emphasis on Derrida’s deconstructive reading of Saussure as well as Levi- Strauss and Rousseau. We will conclude with selections from Julia Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language, where she challenges Derrida to include the semiotic (the living, desiring body) alongside an emphasis on the symbolic aspects of cultural signification. Throughout the term we will seek to identify the distinctive features of the poststructuralist approach, and situate them in relation to other contemporary schools of thought. Our focus is going to be thematic as well as historical, and we will address a number of themes at the intersection of language, social structures, subjectivity, desire, and the living body. Reading Schedule WEEK 1 (03/28 – 04/03): 1. Introductory meeting. Recommended: Editor’s introduction in Culler, Structuralism, (4 vol.), pp. 1- 14. Are you History? Introduction to Sturrock’s Structuralism (pp.
    [Show full text]